A Quote by William Zinsser

Writers can write to affirm and to celebrate, or they can write to debunk and destroy; the choice is ours.

William Zinsser

Quote Topics

Affirm Celebrate Choice Destroy Ours Write Writers

Quote Author

William Zinsser
American - Writer
October 7, 1922 - May 12, 2015

That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.

Renata Adler

Ninety-five percent of all writers who write do not get published, but 100 percent of all writers write because they have a voice in their head. The vast majority of writers simply write because they have to.

Steve Berry

There are many people who say, 'I write for myself.' I think that if you write and publish, then you write for your readers, not just for yourself. Many writers say that they write to be loved. I place myself among those writers.

Angeles Mastretta

There are many people who say, I write for myself. I think that if you write and publish, then you write for your readers, not just for yourself. Many writers say that they write to be loved. I place myself among those writers.

Angeles Mastretta

Writers often have a 'drunk' that is different than anyone else's. That's why it's so insidious and so damning. First of all, because they can write when they're drinking - or they think they can. A lot of writers will tell me - and this is the latest one I've heard - you drink while you're thinking about what to write, but when you actually write, you sober up.

Debra Winger

Writers are troubled about finding time to write and writer's block and publicizing books that aren't books yet. They agonize over how to write and what to write and what not to write.

Deb Caletti

I feel as though I never had choice not to be a writer. I feel in my heart of hearts that writing chose me and this is what I must do. I have no choice but to write, and to write, and to write, because my very life depends on it. And to assume that, of course, everyone in the entire universe wants to read what I've written.

Jerdine Nolen

Here in New York, we're media obsessed. Writers write about writers who write about writers and reporters and freelancers, and it's just a festival of information. We're all analyzing and examining and predicting, and I can't imagine that it's like that everywhere else.

Lauren Weisberger

We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.

Zadie Smith

Real writers write because they love to write. They don't write for public acclaim.

Chuck Palahniuk

Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

Robert Penn Warren

Some writers, of course, simply write, as they feel they are driven to do, by outer/inner inspirations. If, after the work is written and, hopefully, published, others respond -- that is the Champagne. But we, or some of us, don't write for the Champagne. We write because we write.

Tanith Lee

I don't know about other writers, but for myself, to write I must be relatively quiet - it's very difficult to write with the telephone and the doorbell ringing and conversation going on; I'm not that good a writer to write through all that!

Ray Charles

To read and to write. Some writers have to be told to write. They think their job is to meet agents and have experiences and they can just be rich and famous. Their job is to write. Some really don't realize that. And you can't write unless you read.

Ursula K. Le Guin

The most important thing for aspiring writers is for them to give themselves permission to be brave on the page, to write in the presence of fear, to go to those places that you think you can’t write - really that’s exactly what you need to write.